The state Department of Natural Resources contributed $35,000, but levee officials estimate they’ll need as much as $30,000 more to cover all the costs after rapid erosion caused the gap to nearly double in size, said Jerome Zeringue, executive director of the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District.

Though the levee is under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Natural Resources, Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District board members voted to take up the project to plug the washout before strong currents erode the levee further.

Cold fronts kicking up strong winds and currents since the washout first formed in early March have caused the breach to expand from an easily fixable 5-foot gap to a chasm nearly 75 feet wide and 30 feet deep.

"The fronts that were passing through generated a strong southeast wind," Zeringue said. "Once there’s a breach, it can be easily eroded by strong currents."

Levee workers encountered difficulties even getting the project started last week. The first load of rock material that would be used to plug the levee hole was placed on a faulty barge that sunk before levee officials could get to work, delaying the project by several days.

Workers were finally able to mobilize the barge late last week and expect to be finished by early next week, Zeringue said.

The process of filling the levee breach is cumbersome. Levee officials spend about two hours loading nearly 350 tons of rock onto a barge, then make a two-hour trip carting the rock seven miles to the breach. It takes another two hours to unload the rock and dirt into the gap.

By Thursday, the Levee Board had put four barge loads of rock into the washout and estimated it would take 10 loads to close the gap.

Officials plan to fill the gap with dirt after the barge is in place to rebuild the levee.

"But we can’t put dirt there without first cutting off the current," Zeringue said. "It would just be swept away."

The breach formed where the levee connected to a section of sheet piling -- metal panels driven into the ground -- and the Levee District plans to place rocks at the other end of the sheet pile to prevent erosion of that section of levee as well.

Though it is not a hurricane-projection levee, and only reaches a height of six feet, it plays an important role in protecting nearby communities like Montegut, Zeringue said.

Without the levee, those same waves causing the erosion would be beating against the Montegut flood-protection levee to the north, he said.

The marsh-management levee helps protect more than 33,000 acres of south Terrebonne wetlands adjacent to Montegut, Chauvin, Isle de Jean Charles and Pointe-aux-Chenes from the intruding Gulf of Mexico. It aims to control saltwater intrusion into the marsh as well as wave action.

"There’s marsh on the inside, but it has eroded away," Zeringue said. "It just indicates the significance of the problem."

Officials eventually plan to come back and strengthen and build portions of Morganza-to-the-Gulf on top of the breached levee, he said.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.